Interview with Evgeny Gnidko (ATC 2012)

The Expert Advisor of Evgeny Gnidko (FIFO)
currently seems to be the most stable one at the Automated Trading
Championship 2012. This trading robot entered TOP-10 at the third week
remaining one of the leading Expert Advisors ever since. After the rapid
series of trades during the first month of the Championship, the robot
is now quietly waiting for the new growth of volatility.

Hello, Evgeny! This is not the first time you participate in the Championship, right? How did it all start?

Hello! Yes, I have been interested in
online trading for about 5 years already since I first read about it
somewhere on the Internet. I started developing simple trading robots on
MQL4 based on built-in MetaTrader 4 technical indicators right away. I
also spent much time studying and analyzing the automated trading on
Forex. I won in several demo contests and decided to realize some
trading ideas.

According to your nickname FIFO, your work somehow relates to accounting.

No, it doesn't. I have some
programming skills in C++ and С#. FIFO is a principle of a queue
processing technique. It was the first word I thought about when
selecting a nickname.

Your current participation in the Championship is quite successful. What is the reason?

The Expert Advisor I have presented
this year showed good results both during the tests and real trading.
So, I think that the current success has been formed by the good Expert
Advisor, favorable market and some element of luck.

Your trading robot was very active
during the first month, though it was almost invisible in November. Is
it some kind of trading tactics or an error?

The Expert Advisor works by placing
pending orders at certain levels. Now, it is waiting for the price to
reach some certain level, so that the appropriate conditions for
recalculation of levels were triggered. However, there have been a few
cases when the levels should have been recalculated but it did not
happen. So, I think there are also some other forces affecting my Expert
Advisor. Besides, EURUSD is not so volatile at the moment preventing
the Expert Advisor from demonstrating all its power.

Your Expert Advisor is called
"ice_rain_ATC2012". Who should be the victim of this "ice rain" and what
are your trading robot's trading principles?

There is no any hidden meaning in my
Expert Advisor's name. "Ice rain" was the first thing that occurred to
me when I started developing it. The robot is simple enough. As I've
already mentioned, it places pending orders at certain levels calculated
using ZigZag. The Stop level is several times smaller than the Profit
one. Also, dynamic Trailing Stop and signal filtration mechanism are
used.

It actually sounds quite simple. I
guess, the most interesting things have remained concealed. There are
millions types of ZigZags. How many of them have you tried?

I use conventional MetaTrader ZigZag. However, I don't want to reveal the details of my Expert Advisor's operation algorithm.

Some experience in programming is
needed to work with ZigZag. What do you do for a living and what is your
educational background?

As I've already said, I have some
programming skills in C++ and С#. That is why I faced no difficulties
when mastering MQL4 and MQL5 languages. I obtained a higher technical
education as a programmer and an economist. In my spare time, I enjoy
swimming and biking, while in my non-spare time... well, it is also
spare for me.

It means that you have enough time to do manual trading, right? Have you traded manually and what do you think about it?

I don't see the point of that. The
benefits of the automated trading are obvious: robots can quickly
analyze the market and make necessary decisions. There is no need to
constantly track the market state and you can always test your Expert
Advisor using historical data. I believe that robots should do trading,
while traders should only track their operation and implement changes
when necessary. Currently, I trade only with the help of Expert Advisors
with varying success. I had quite a remarkable experience once: one
dishonest brokerage company tried to "strangle" my robot with off-quotes
and then accused me of incorrect trading annexing the part of my
profit.

So, you are experienced in the automated trading. How many ideas and strategies have you realized?

Actually, there are not so many really
valuable ideas and there are only a few ones that I use in trading.
Strategies tend to stop working when the market changes, especially in
case of high market volatility. Therefore, it is important to stop such
robots in time if their behavior starts deviating from the test results.
According to my experience, the current market is more suitable for
breakdown systems rather than roll-back ones.

Well, it's quite a challenge to
correctly define the moment of the market change, as well as the right
time to replace a trading system... How do you solve this issue?

When the drawdown exceeds the maximum
value shown in the tester or the balance curve shows something unusual
or suspicious, I minimize the risks or stop the robot. Then I analyze
the results using my intuition and logic. In general, I define the most
probable negative course of events sufficient for replacing the robot
from the very beginning. I believe it is always possible to save at
least a small part of the deposit even in case of the worst course of
events.

ZigZag on M15 is a really unusual thing! How did you manage to tame such a beast?

I've been experimenting with ZigZag
for quite a long time already. This indicator is well suited for
determining the price movement direction. It showed the best results on
М15.

Why have you chosen ZigZag? What advantages does it have over other indicators? Have you ever developed your own indicators?

I prefer to use ready-made indicators.
I've never tried to develop my own ones. I don't know what advantages
or drawbacks ZigZag has comparing to other indicators. The most
important thing for me is that it is good at determining the levels.

Your Expert Advisor has an
impressive profit factor, as well as the percentage of profitable deals.
What were the optimization criteria and what results have been obtained
during the preliminary automatic tests on the 8-month interval?

I did not perform optimization in the
tester. Expert Advisor's parameters (Stop-Loss, Take-Profit, Trailing
Stop, etc.) were defined visually and intuitively. Then I checked them
using the tester. I detected some certain behavior patterns of the
trading robot depending on the parameters and selected a few definite
patterns that allow the Expert Advisor to shoot ahead and occupy leading
positions. Actually, that was the optimization criterion - the most
rapid growth of the balance within the shortest period of time.

It seems that your tactics have
worked - your Expert Advisor has completed its task before the market
change. Would you have implemented any changes to your trading robot's
parameters now if you've had such an opportunity? Or may be, you would
even have stopped it right away?

No, I don't want to change anything. I'm satisfied with the results so far.

Only a little more than two weeks
have left before the end of the Championship. How do you estimate your
chances of staying in TOP-3 and what do you think about the forecasts
from Roman (Rich)?

I think that his forecasts have
nothing to do with reality and almost all of them will not come true.
They are quite interesting, anyway. As for my chances, I think that I
will stay in TOP-10 unless something really unexpected happens. Of
course, I would like to stay in TOP-3.

Have you already thought about how to spend the prize money if you win?

"Everyone who is struggling with programming and who were not able to participate in this year's competition, know that it becomes a lot easier in time", said Juan Pablo Alonso Escobar (JPAlonso), the hero of today's interview.

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